Suffice
by lin.exe
Summary: It’s all fun and games until someone ends up between his travelling companion’s legs with said companion’s lips tracing fire up his neck. Okay, so maybe it’s still fun and games. Some unnecessarily fluffy shounen-ai for the masses.


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SUFFICE

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AUTHOR: lin.exe

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RATING: PG-13 for general dirtiness 

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WARNINGS: animeverse, undetermined location on timeline, stress-induced writing binge, shounen-ai/yaoi, one-shot, excessive hyphen use

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PAIRING: Wolfwood x Vash

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SUMMARY: It's all fun and games until someone ends up between his travelling companion's legs with said companion's lips tracing fire up his neck. Okay, so maybe it's still fun and games. Some unnecessarily fluffy shounen-ai for the masses.

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FOR: Tricia, for shattering the illusion that I'm the only yaoi fangirl in this godforsaken city.

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NOTES: Turns out I write fanfic when I'm stressed. Fanfic fluffier than a long-haired cat with a feather duster. Go figure. In other words: forgive me for the excess of fluff, for I lack the strength to resist writing this crap.

Excuses, excuses.

My second plea for forgiveness comes from this fic's lack of a lemon, even after what SEEMS like a relatively promising buildup. Does this even count as a lime? Who knows. The point is it's shamefully clean, and only because I still lack the confidence to write a lemon in any form. If it makes you feel any better, I promise it would be terrible. Euphemism and pronoun confusion all over the place – not pretty.

Right, on with it. As this is a one-shot, I shall thank any prospective reviewers in advance. Flames will inevitably cause mild indignation, while constructive criticism will be appreciated (after I get over my initial embarrassment at screwing up).

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Vash sat with his back against a wall of rough stone. His knees were bent and parted, the position made necessary by the second figure situated between his long legs. The figure was Wolfwood, who in turn sat with his back to the blonde gunman, shoulder blades against Vash's chest, head tucked under Vash's chin. It was something like a two-man bobsled team missing a certain key piece of equipment. 

Look a little closer, though, and you'd see the blonde man's hands wrapped securely around his partner, fingers laced in the middle of Wolfwood's chest. Look even closer and you'd marvel that the tanned hand not tapping ash from a dwindling cigarette was placed lightly on Vash's knee, fingers drumming out an unfamiliar rhythm.

"I still feel stupid," Wolfwood complained.

"No one's making you stay here," Vash calmly reminded him, not looking down at the preacher.

"What do you call this?" Wolfwood asked, gesturing toward Vash's entwined fingers.

"You could easily have broken my hold. Heck, you could have broken my FINGERS, had you felt so inclined," said Vash.

The blonde was fairly glad his companion HADN'T felt so inclined. His facial expression gave away his contentment at the position they were currently in, but he couldn't be sure just how happy Wolfwood was with it. He hadn't resorted to violence – heck, he hadn't even left. These, in Vash's opinion, were both good signs.

It was, of course, entirely his fault they were seated this way. Wolfwood had been tuning up the Angelina in preparation for the next day's jaunt when Vash got the alleviate his boredom by irritating the preacher as much as possible. He crouched behind his friend's kneeling form and raised a hand to the back of Wolfwood's head.

*Flick*

"Augh! Dammit Tongari!"

Wolfwood threw an elbow into Vash's chest without so much as turning his head, and the outlaw's back hit the dusty ground. In an instant Vash was back in a crouching position, lunging at his friend's back. In another instant he had Wolfwood in a headlock and was mercilessly grinding his knuckles into the tangles of shaggy black hair.

Several obscenities later Wolfwood had almost gained his feet, though he had yet to remove the maniacally giggling Vash from his person. The preacher stumbled backwards until his adversary was pinned against the rough stone wall, at which point the two lost their collective footing and fell ungracefully to the ground.

Somehow they had ended up more or less in the position they now held. Vash's securing arms were his own addition, and Wolfwood's hand movements seemed a product of his treacherous subconscious. They had been arguing for over an hour now, the debate consisting mostly of Wolfwood's protestations that he felt stupid, offset by Vash's insistence that none of this was his fault. It occurred to both of them that Wolfwood was going to a lot of effort to convince himself and Vash that he wasn't enjoying himself, without ever actually PROVING his argument by up and leaving.

"Why are we sitting like this anyway?" the preacher asked.

This threw Vash, as it was neither a question his partner had posed in the past hour nor one he could successfully answer. 

"I'm practising to become a couch?" Vash tried, and grinned.

"Really, Vash." Wolfwood's tone was serious now. "Why haven't we moved?"

"I... uh," Vash faltered.

"We're both entirely too comfortable with being this close. One of us at least should really object, but clearly neither of us does. This is the kind of thing lovers do, Vash. What does that make us?"

"We're..." Vash was still at a loss for words, "we're... just travelling companions."

Silence reigned. The pale edge of the third moon crept up past the long horizon line.

"Aren't we?" Vash's voice was small and uncertain.

"It's a thin line, Tongari," Wolfwood said simply, and took a long drag from his cigarette.

To Nicholas D. Wolfwood, the line seemed thin indeed. How many stray and unwelcome Vash-related thoughts had to work their way into his conscious mind before he had to admit his attraction to the outlaw? How close could they get to each other before "just travelling companions" was more an outright lie than a stretched truth?

Because he HADN'T really crossed that first line yet, the preacher couldn't make any definitive decisions on the second. He suspected, however, that even if his consideration of Vash held more affection than was entirely appropriate, he could be fairly content without ever crossing that second line. There were so few differences between friendship and romance that Wolfwood realized he was satisfied with whatever he could get. If he could feel Vash's presence behind him, on the Angelina or in their current pose, who needed the touch of lips and skin? What was the difference.

Something soft and warm pressed against the side of Wolfwood's neck, and he abruptly remembered just what the difference was.

Apparently he had shifted slightly during his contemplation, and the exposed skin of his neck was now level with Vash's face – specifically, Vash's warm, soft lips, which now traced a line of kisses up toward Wolfwood's jaw. An almost imperceptible breeze caressed the damp trail left behind, eliciting a shiver from the black-haired man. 

While the preacher was busy retracting his last few thoughts and decisions with suprising swiftness, his body reacted to the outlaw's touch without so much as consulting his conscious mind. His lips parted in an involuntary sigh and the rhythm on Vash's knee became a firm, tense grip. A tongue darted out playfully between the lips Vash held to Wolfwood's jaw and the preacher shivered more noticeably.

"T... travelling companions, Tongari?" Wolfwood questioned.

"It's a thin line," Vash said, as if this explained everything, "I guess I missed it on the way over."

"You have... ah... terrible eyesight."

"Mmm. I can go back and look for it, if you want," Vash offered, pulling back slightly. Translation: _I'll stop if you ask me to._

"Don't even THINK about it." Wolfwood turned to glare at his partner.

Vash smiled, "Good, I ignored it on purpose."

"Oi, less extended metaphors, more of THIS," Wolfwood admonished, and pulled Vash's head down until their lips met.

It was a comfortable, almost familiar kiss, as if they'd done this hundreds of times before. Yet there was pleasure, and passion to spare. By the time the kiss had ended, begun again, ended again and launched a third and forth edition of itself, there was enough pleasure and passion to reduce both men to a powerless, malleable medium to be moulded at the other's whim. 

Devoid of language or coherent though, they sought tactile sensation like a tree seeks water and light, leaning into each other until it was impossible to be any closer, than trying anyway. Wolfwood faced Vash now, still kneeling between the gunman's legs, left arm braced against the rough stone above Vash's head while a tanned right hand cupped the side of the outlaw's face. The cigarette had been discarded, the red trenchcoat unbuttoned and still making its way off of Vash's body.

Wolfwood swept his tongue across the curves and hollows of Vash's mouth with confidence and purpose. If this needle-headed dolt was going to rob him of control so effortlessly, Wolfwood wouldn't to hesitate to mercilessly tempt and tease. He chose a spot just below Vash's ear and graced it with his lips, his teeth, his tongue; enough attention to leave a mark and make the gunman squirm beneath him. He briefly took note of his partner's pleading look before recovering Vash's lips with his own. 

The blonde's searching hands, meanwhile, had found their way to a sensitive spot on Wolfwood's stomach. The preacher let a moan slip between their connected lips, and Vash's hips moved upward of their own accord. 

Thus was a series of motions and reactions set in motion which would eventually end in a image of perfect contentment: two wanderers wrapped securely in each other's arms and the seventy-odd square iles of red cloth that comprised Vash's trenchcoat. Somewhere the last moments' declarations of love, need and impromptu religious conversion were still causing minute vibrations in the desert air. 

Between them, though, no words passed now. The guilt and uncertainty would not reach Wolfwood's brain for several hours, as it was currently devoting all its resources to keeping awake long enough to fully appreciate the moment. He was doing better than Vash, who had drifted off almost immediately, face pressed firmly into Wolfwood's neck. The preacher knew he was fighting a losing battle though.

Before sleep could take him, he summoned the presence of mind to ask himself why this felt right when nothing conclusively made it so. A quick look down at his partners face, however, provided all the answer he needed. Vash was smiling, even in his sleep. The real smile, the one that even Wolfwood admitted to appreciating. If nights like these could remain independent from their harsher days, if words and touches could cancel out past sins and impending betrayal – if both of them could smile so honestly from something so simple and inherently HUMAN, Wolfwood lacked the will to reject it.

So he accepted. He slept. 

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End file.
